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Accountability

Sponsoring Agency: Institute on Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education
Research Team: Susan Fuhrman (Teachers College); Richard Elmore (Harvard University); Martin Carnoy (Stanford University)

A collaborative effort between CPRE and the Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST), the goal of this study (2001-2004) was to address emerging issues in the development and implementation of state and local assessment and accountability systems and to inform policymakers facing difficult and technical questions in the design and implementation of new accountability approaches.  The project focused on the following activities from 2001 through 2004:

• Project researchers produced a book on accountability, The New Accountability: High Schools and High-stakes Testing, based on research on school responses in four states with varying approaches. The New Accountability focuses on the relationship between accountability and capacity, examining the conditions under which accountability systems enable mobilization of capacity and how they energize and interact with capacity-building efforts. 
   
• In July 2000 and February 2001, CPRE and CRESST researchers met with education researchers to begin a synthesis of knowledge gained from research on accountability issues. As a result of these meetings, a series of papers were commissioned and are included in the book, Redesigning Accountability Systems for Education (Teachers College Press, 2003).  The resulting book, and policy brief of the same title, provide an invaluable resource for policymakers, educators, and anyone interested in the pressing issue of accountability and public schools.  

Products:
1. The New Accountability: High Schools and High-stakes Testing
(Edited by Martin Carnoy, Richard F. Elmore, and Leslie Santee Siskin, 2003). Available from RoutledgeFalmer, 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY, online orders: www.routledge-ny.com

2. Redesigning Accountability Systems for Education
(Susan H. Fuhrman, September 2003, RB-38)

3. Redesigning Accountability Systems for Education
(Edited by Susan H. Fuhrman and Richard F. Elmore, January 2004). Available from Teachers College Press, PO Box 20, Williston, VT 05495-0200, (800) 575-6566, online orders: www.tcpress.com

4. Implementing the No Child Left Behind Act: Challenges for the States (By Margaret Goertz).  A special issue of the Peabody Journal of Education (2005), Vol. 80, No. 2, Pages 73-89.

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